I wrote yesterday on the reasons why the anti-arthritis drug Vioxx has been withdrawn from sale: People taking it have a small (in absolute terms) extra risk of having a non-fatal heart attack.
A medical correspondent has emailed me with an interesting suggestion, however: The extra heart attacks might be a sign of the drug’s success! If Vioxx is better at relieving arthritic pain it might make people taking it more likely to lead active lives — having more sex, engaging in more outdoor activities etc. And since the extra heart attacks usually occur among people who are already frail or elderly, those extra activities might put enough strain on their hearts to bring on a heart attack in some instances. So the claim that the extra heart attacks are due to the drug itself may be quite wrong. It is just an assumption.
Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here
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2 users commented in " More on Vioxx "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThat might make some sense but for the large number of 30, 40 and 50 somethings who were still very active in their work and personal lives and suffered a heart attack or stroke while taking Vioxx. Many of those who survived have gone back to living their lives as they did before Vioxx and have had no other heart attacks. Your medical correspondent should perhaps look into the relationship between Cox 2 enzymes and plalets in the blood.
How about this… the heart attacks, if they WERE more common among the “frail and elderly”, occurred because the target demographic for Vioxx was precisely people who have arthritis. Arthritis is more common among older people, but arthritis doesn’t necessarily qualify someone, at any age, as frail. People with arthritis are often athletic and active… not always sedentary. That being said, there were many heart attacks… and deaths… among Vioxx users who were quite young. Some were in their thirties. The idea that Vioxx should be heralded as a motivator for a more healthy lifestyle, while trivializing the enormous damage that it has done is idiotic. Let’s say that every single person who took Vioxx was elderly, frail, and a heart attack just waiting to happen. Does that make the undeniable cardiac dangers in Vioxx less important? Are you saying that, well these people were standing on the edge of the cliff anyway, and Vioxx just gave them a tiny push? You are basically vilifying the very people that Vioxx was targeted, and voraciously marketed, to help.
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